A Letter to an Evangelical

by Father Michael

Letter to an Evangelical

by Father Michael B. Johnson

Some years ago, I wrote a letter to the editor of an Orthodox publication,
responding to a previous letter from an evangelical who had criticized the
Orthodox Church for being "unscriptural." My letter too was published, and not
long after I received a personal letter from an evangelical who criticized the
Orthodox Church in detail - essentially, for "following the traditions of men"
instead of the Word of God. Below are some excerpts from my response -

Although you certainly don't agree with me in your letter, I believe it was
written in a spirit of frank discussion and mutual respect, so let me try to
respond in the same way.

You ask me to give you book, chapter and verse where the Bible says that
tradition will save man from hell. One passage that comes to mind is 2
Thessalonians 2:13-15:

"...God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel,
to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been
taught, whether by word, or our epistle."

In this passage, Saint Paul makes it quite clear that the Thessalonians have
been called to salvation (from hell) through the gospel, which was passed on to
them in the form of
traditions.
As you can see here - since the beginning of Christianity, not everything has
been written down. St. Paul urges the Thessalonians to keep the traditions
passed on by the
spoken word
as well as those written in his epistles.

Those same spoken traditions have been passed down and preserved in the
Orthodox Church to this day. More importantly, the entire Gospel was originally
a spoken tradition. Christ himself didn't write a word of it.

At Pentecost, Peter spoke to the crowd in Acts 2:38, saying, "Repent, and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of
sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." He was clearly
preaching the Gospel - but what "version"? The four evangelists had not yet
been inspired to begin their work.

The fact is, the New Testament itself is just tradition written down. As we
have seen, St. Paul even refers to his own epistles as "tradition" in 2
Thessalonians 2:15.

I completely agree with the quotation in your letter, from Romans 12:1-2
(written by the same St. Paul who told the Thessalonians to keep the
traditions
they had received from him). Frankly, you seem to have the feeling that
tradition and being Christ-centered are two different things. That's not how I
look at it, and not how the Orthodox Church looks at it either.

In your letter you say you "hail the Protestant reformation as a Spiritual
break-through and a release of bondage from the church." I can't help wondering
why you would want to be released from bondage to the church, if the church is
what the Scriptures say it is.

Saint Paul says that we who are in the church are "...of the household of God;
and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself
being the chief corner stone" (Ephesians 2:19-20). Isn't that where Christians
should really want to be?

Show me one place in the New Testament where Christ says he has come to
establish a Bible. By contrast, it is clear from the New Testament that Christ
came to establish the church to carry out his mission. The church is referred
to time and again - as Christ's body, his people, his bride.

Christ never spoke of a future book which would be the ultimate authority on
Christian matters. But he did say in Matthew 16:18, "...I will build my
church;
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Again, in Matthew 18:17,
Christ says that a sinner should be taken to the
church
for final judgment. It is clear that the church Christ founded has real
authority.

In fact, the church came before the written New Testament. As mentioned above,
Peter and the other apostles were preaching the Gospel before a word of it was
written down. In fact, it was only gradually that the writings now included in
the New Testament were collected in the form we have them today. There were
lots of other writings that were supposedly by apostles and could have been
included.

It was the
church
that decided which books were truly the Christian Scriptures. In fact, the
first person ever to write down the 27 books of the New Testament in the same
order that all Christians have them today was an Orthodox Saint - Athanasius -
who lived some three hundred years after the death of Christ. If you take away
the church and its authority, then where did the written New Testament come
from?

Let me just make a couple comments on your discussion of devotion to Mary. In
the Orthodox view, Mary remained "ever-virgin." When Joseph took Mary as his
wife, he was an older man, a widower, with existing children - James, Jude,
etc., and these are the "brethren" of Christ referred to in the Scriptures.

By contrast, you state that there is a "natural inference" in Matthew 1:25 that
Mary and Joseph themselves had other children. You are probably referring to
the phrase, "...knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son..."
To properly understand "till" or "until" as used in the Scriptures, I would
call your attention to Hebrews 1:13 where St. Paul quotes a prophesy about the
Messiah, "Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool."

This certainly doesn't mean that Jesus will no longer sit at the right hand of
his Father after his enemies are made his footstool! In neither passage does
the New Testament Greek word
eos
imply a change of status in the future.

You mention that Jesus' "brethren" are described as not believing in him until
after the resurrection. You are absolutely right - and this is a very telling
point in favor of the Orthodox interpretation.

If Jesus had been the oldest brother, he would naturally have had an enormous
influence on his younger siblings (especially if Joseph were dead, in which
case he would have been the head of the family). But in fact, his "brethren"
treat him precisely as you would expect older brothers to treat a younger one -
and that's exactly my point.

Nor can I accept your suggestion that pagan influences caused Mary to be
exalted above her Scriptural position as "handmaid of the Lord."

In the first place, Mary is a great deal more than just a "handmaid" in the New
Testament. Mary herself says, "...behold, from henceforth all generations shall
call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things" (Luke
1:48-49).

And her cousin, Elizabeth, "filled with the Holy Ghost" (Luke 1:41), says, "And
whence is this to me (= "who am I"), that the mother of my Lord should come to
me?" (Luke 1:43.) Clearly the Holy Spirit, speaking through Elizabeth,
considers the Lord's mother to be someone extremely important.

As far as the many pagan analogies to Mary are concerned, they really prove
nothing. There is no evidence that the early church actually copied any of them.

Furthermore, there are as many pagan analogies to Christ himself! For example -
both Mythra and Dionysius were also associated with dying and rising again. For
that matter, Buddha is also supposed to have had a miraculous birth. And the
term
logos
(word) in John 1:1 was borrowed originally from pagan Greek philosophy.

None of these things means that the Christ of the New Testament is a creature
of pagan influences. And the same is true regarding the church's view of Mary.

On the subject of Holy Communion - you may be right that the Lord's Supper was
a Passover feast (Seder). The synoptic Gospels do suggest that - but John
doesn't. If you check the chronology in John, you find the Lord's Supper came
to pass on the evening "before the feast of the passover" (John 13:1). If so,
the Jewish meal that took place was probably a
chaburah,
not a Seder. A
chaburah
could be repeated at any time.

In any case, there is no scriptural evidence for limiting the Lord's Supper to
once a year. Quite the contrary, as we see in St. Paul's description of what
took place at that all important meal. In 1 Corinthians 11:25, the Lord took
the cup and said, "...this do ye, as
oft
as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." In the Lord's own words, His Supper is
to be done often - not just annually.

Of course, I agree with you that the Lord's Supper is a memorial of Christ (as
he himself said). But why can't this memorial also be a true partaking of the
Lord? If Communion is only a symbol then why does St. Paul say, "...whosoever
shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily,
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord
"? (1 Corinthians 11:27.) What is the plain meaning of those words?

You suggest that the Orthodox Church is "still interpreting Scripture
traditionally of men" because the church buildings, furnishings, priests'
robes, etc. can be compared to the Old Testament temple.

I agree, these things can be compared to the temple - but what's wrong with
that? Isn't the Old Testament a part of the Bible? The vestments and
furnishings of the temple were hardly "traditions of men." They are laid out in
Exodus, starting with chapter 25, which begins "And
the Lord
spake unto Moses, saying..." Regarding the priests' vestments, it is
God
who says, "And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory
and for beauty" (Exodus 28:2).

Where in the New Testament does it suggest that Christ or his followers ever
rejected the temple and what it stood for? Quite the contrary - in Matthew
21:13, Jesus cleanses the temple, quoting the Old Testament and calling the
temple, "the house of prayer" (Isaiah 56:7).

Later Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees for swearing by the temple -
telling them, "...whether is greater, the gold, or
the temple that sanctifieth the gold?"
And again Jesus says, "...whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it,
and
by him that dwelleth therein
."
(Matthew 23:17 & 21.)

As we have seen, it was through Moses that God passed the ordinances about the
temple to his people. True - Christ
did
condemn the scribes and Pharisees for following traditions of men. But that was
not
because they were following Moses. Just the opposite - it was because they were
not
following Moses (see Mark 7:9-11).

After Jesus ascended into heaven, his followers "...
were continually in the temple,
praising and blessing God. (Luke 24:53). Like Jesus, the early Christians never
rejected the temple - what actually happened is that the temple rejected them
(at least, the high priests did). No matter, the disciples were soon out
founding New Testament temples, Christian churches.

Returning to the Lord's words, if the Old Testament temple could sanctify
things (make them holy) and was the dwelling place of God - how much more so
would that be true of a Christian church?

The Orthodox Church sees the worship of the Old Testament temple fulfilled in
the New Testament. Nowhere is that more clear than in the Book of Revelation,
where Christian worship is described as including both heaven and earth.

In just one example, we read in Revelation 4:4, "...I saw four and twenty
elders
sitting,
clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold."
"Elders" is the common New Testament word for "clergy." By clothing her bishops
and priests in "holy garments" at Liturgy, the Orthodox Church is simply
following the precedent set in Scripture - in fact, bringing the Book of
Revelation to life.

As you apparently know, we also offer incense in the Orthodox liturgy. Again,
in Revelation 8:3 we read, "And another angel came and stood at the altar,
having a golden censer;
and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it
with the prayers of all saints
upon the golden altar which was before the throne."

Let me mention just one more vision that occurs in Revelation, "And there
appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with
child cried, travailing in birth..." (Revelation 12:1-2). This is a vision of
the Christian church, as the mother of Christ.

From that standpoint, each Orthodox icon of Mary is a Scriptural image of the
church, bearing Christ into the world. The true precedent for it has nothing to
do with paganism whatsoever.

At the close of your letter, you suggest that I should be careful when I point
my finger at anyone, and then you quote Jesus' words in Matthew 7:5, "...first
cast out the beam out of thine own eye..." I don't claim to be entirely
clear-eyed spiritually, but I would say this - I do think you have "a beam in
your eye" - because from what you say, you don't understand what the Orthodox
Church teaches, and yet you are condemning it.

For your own peace of mind - and perhaps for your own salvation - find out what
the Orthodox Church, which has existed for 2,000 years, actually teaches. Could
it be the church described in the New Testament? If so, it is "the pillar and
ground of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15). By contrast - wouldn't any church
founded since the Reformation (i.e. in the last few hundred years) be just
"following the traditions of men"?